Pair who pleaded guilty in international scheme still face fraud charges in Ontario.

Private investigator Elaine White was convicted of money laundering in an international scheme, while private investigator Cullen Johnson was sentenced to prison for his role in an international fraud scheme.

Two Canadian private eyes have been jailed in the United States for bilking clients in an international scheme that involved bogus promises of offshore millions.

Cullen Johnson, 65, and Elaine White, 70, were first exposed in a Star investigation five years ago. Both have now pleaded guilty to money laundering. They were sentenced Thursday to five years and six months in federal penitentiary.

They face fraud charges in Ontario, which will be dealt with after their release from U.S. custody.

The investigation by U.S. authorities also snared a popular television anchor whose bank account was used as a conduit for more than $500,000 in funds from the Canadian couple. Juliet Bickford, who, until this week, worked for a Virginia CBS affiliate, pleaded guilty Wednesday to filing a false tax return and has been cooperating with investigators. A fourth person in the scheme, Bickford’s boyfriend, is believed to be hiding out in Greece.

Ten years ago, Johnson and White were flying high in Ontario. He was a former Toronto police detective; she an investigator for a downtown accounting firm.

They formed a partnership in a strange endeavour the Star, in its 2009 investigation, called a “financial striptease.” Their companies were Internal Affairs and Global Solutions, which specialized in “financial asset investigations,” according to a company website.

Johnson and White sought out clients involved in messy legal cases such as an acrimonious divorce. They concocted bogus and stunningly realistic international banking information that would lead one party to believe the other had millions of dollars in assets offshore in places like the Channel Islands or the Cayman Islands. Over a period of time, the detectives would charge increasingly higher fees in return for more “banking information.” Often that information was presented in court as real and it took lawyers and judges years to understand it was false.

One non-divorce case involved a group of school board employees who had unknowingly purchased a winning lottery ticket. Through a series of manoeuvres and false documents, the lottery winners were led to believe that one member of their group had stolen and cashed in the ticket.

Investigators in the U.S. allege at least $1 million in fees were paid to Johnson and White over the life of the scheme. Victims of the scheme lived in Ontario, Alberta, and throughout the U.S.

The Ontario Provincial Police investigated and charged Johnson and White with fraud in 2009 but the duo slipped out of Canada and took up residence in the Bahamas. U.S. police caught up with them in 2012 after they had moved to the Turks and Caicos. When Johnson and White pleaded guilty in 2013 to money laundering in the U.S., the court documents described how the pair were paid to do “sweeps and searches of the world financial system’s wire transfer clearinghouses.”

Johnson, who fancies himself a movie-esque, hard-boiled private eye, went by the alias “Dirk Pitt.” Johnson has steadfastly insisted in interviews and statements on his website that he is the victim of a massive government conspiracy and that the banking records he has provided clients are legitimate.

Faced with the powerful U.S. justice system, the pair admitted to money laundering in connection to a scheme that saw the creation of bogus financial reports showing assets in places like Monaco, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Latin America and various Caribbean countries. Fraud charges were dropped and the pair has agreed to cooperate with investigators.

One victim was former Liberal MPP Eric Cunningham of Hamilton. He and his ex-wife were involved in divorce proceedings. His ex-wife submitted evidence to the court indicating private investigators had discovered $2.3 million in offshore accounts. Cunningham spent many years fighting the case until a judge ruled he was the victim of a scam.

For many victims involved in the case, Cunningham is the hero because he helped keep the case front and centre with the various investigative authorities and by acting as a sort of clearing house of investigative information related to the scheme.

“The Cullen Johnson and Elaine White crime tour is over,” Cunningham said in an interview yesterday. “Their reckless and vicious behaviour caused horrific damage to a great many people. It is gratifying to see the courts impose serious sentences but it does not undo the damage they have caused.”

The mystery man in the case is Theodoros Grontis, a Canadian who had been living in Virginia. Police in Canada and the U.S. are looking for him.

According to court documents, he was in partnership with Johnson and White, and was the boyfriend of Bickford, 35, the Channel 3 Morning News anchor at WTKR-TV in Hampton Roads, Virginia, a job she left last week. The agreed statement of facts filed as part of her guilty plea to filing a false tax return describes how her bank account was used by her Canadian boyfriend Grontis to accept $516,000 in wire transfers from Johnson and White who had stashed funds in Canada, Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. The money was used to fund living expenses, which appeared to have included a $13,000 hot tub.

She improperly claimed expenses, including the hot tub, on a tax return (she had claimed it was needed for medical purposes). She pleaded guilty to the minor tax charge and has been cooperating with U.S. investigators.

Grontis is facing charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion. Authorities believe he may be living in Greece.

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